


little boy(s) blue & the man in the moon

by floweryfran



Series: a motley crew [7]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers - Freeform, Bilingual Peter Parker, Domestic Avengers, Harley Keener & Peter Parker Friendship, Harley Keener & Peter Parker are Siblings, Iron Dad, Iron dad and Spider son, IronDad and SpiderSon, Irondad, Irondad fluff, Italian Tony Stark, Marvel - Freeform, Peter Parker fluff, Post-Iron Man 3, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Precious Peter Parker, Spider-son, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark is a Good Dad, bilingual tony stark, harley keener fluff, italian irondad, mcu - Freeform, peter parker and tony stark fluff, spider son, spiderson, tony stark fluff, tony stark is a dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-06-30 13:02:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19853734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floweryfran/pseuds/floweryfran
Summary: Or: Peter and Harley’s 7 Foolproof Steps To Turn A Billionaire Into A Father.“We gotta go get ready,” Peter said, rubbing at his eyes with balled fists. “Today is a big, huge, important day, Harley. The most important day of our whole lives, I bet. This is… this is gonna be revolutionary. This is gonna change everything.”...“Couldn’t we have asked, like, Ned for advice? Someone with an actual dad instead of Google?”“Google has a dad,” Peter said, pouting. “Google has two dads. Google alone has more dads than us combined.”“Never thought I’d be jealous of a search engine.”“Well, if this goes right, then we’ll have one whole dad to share and, boy, wouldn’t that be swell.”Harley looked at Peter dryly. “Super swell.”





	little boy(s) blue & the man in the moon

**Author's Note:**

> title is from "cats in the cradle" by ugly kid joe
> 
> this is part of a series! i highly recommend reading the other pieces before this one because they all go together!
> 
> so the thing is. i was not in the mind to write fluff. but i promised this chap would be fluff so here is your fluff you heathens. next one is going to be... capital R Rough so enjoy this while you can.
> 
> the first two sections are so much longer than the rest. sorry??

Step I:  
The alarm was set to go off at seven-oh-three that blithe Saturday morning, granting the boys a gracious stretch of twelve minutes exactly during which they were to rub the sleep from their eyes and pack together the necessary provisions in order to pursue their daunting plan to fruition.

The repeated buzz of the alarm startled Peter sharply out of his sleep, sending a twitch through his body from tip to toe, his legs flailing out and his head shooting up to search weary-eyed for whatever danger was surely encroaching (for no natural beast could inspire the horrific sound that was accosting him at that moment). 

The tremor that shot through the mattress as Peter leapt up shook Harley where he had been laying with those endlessly long limbs curled up against his stomach and one of his arms folded awkwardly beneath his dandelion head. He let out a long, gritty groan that caught and stumbled in the steps of his throat, unfolding himself like aborted origami and trying to iron out all of the creases. His stretches sent him rolling flush on top of Peter and he flopped there as if all the strength had been sapped from his muscles and he was nothing but deadweight. 

Peter grunted and tried to roll Harley off of him, the breath knocked clean from his lungs under the pressure. He jabbed his knees and elbows into Harley’s ribs, prodded at his stomach, rubbed a foot along his shin to try and urge him off. “Harley,” he whined.

“I’m your blanket now,” Harley said serenely, nuzzling his face into Peter’s neck.

With a begrudgingly huffed laugh, Peter gave in to Harley’s whim for a moment, enjoying the warmth and the sound of Harley’s languid pulse. 

The sun shone all the colors of peaches and cream from behind the linen curtains that floated down from the window of Harley’s bedroom. Light caught along every dust mote, setting them aflame like embers spat heedlessly from a smoldering fire, drifting listless and ambulatory upon the stagnant breath of the early morning air. The bristle and thrum of the city was so far below them as to be imaginary, a phantom whisper, just out of reach. 

It was peaceful, just Peter and Harley and the sound of their hearts and the slow awakening of their minds, cocooned beneath layers of flannel and fleece, the morning waiting to spring forth at the calling of their fancy.

Harley let loose another groan, this one high-pitched and whiny, and stretched like taffy, rolling back onto the empty part of the mattress. 

Peter at once felt a weight lift from his chest and another one settle in its place. 

“We gotta go get ready,” Peter said, rubbing at his eyes with balled fists. “Today is a big, huge, important day, Harley. The most important day of our whole lives, I bet. This is… this is gonna be revolutionary. This is gonna change _everything_.”

Harley grumbled unintelligibly.

Peter sat up and slid off the bed, wiggling his bare feet against the carpet to try and wake himself up. “Gotta get the- the… thingies,” Peter mumbled through a spectacular yawn.

Harley groaned and flailed.

Peter stood and stretched up, reaching his fingers taut towards the ceiling. With uneven, dragged steps, he crossed the room and flicked on the overhead light.

Harley wailed in pain and rolled right off the edge of the bed, landing in a heap on the ground with a blanket caught tight around him like a straightjacket. Writhing quite similarly to an upended bug, he continued to grumble until it was clear he would cry of frustrated exhaustion if he were not released from that hell-trap right that very instant. 

He looked up at Peter, beseeching with his big eyes all soft and glassy and red-rimmed and Peter felt something in his chest melt. 

“C’mon, you doofus,” Peter muttered, crossing over to Harley’s helpless form and unrolling him from his blanket prison in one swift yank. 

Harley mumbled something but it was softer than the prior babblings so Peter took it to be a _thank you_. 

Peter prodded him with one of his feet in response. “Get up, get up. Get up, get up, get up,” he repeated unemphatically, jabbing Harley with his toe. When that proved fruitless, he dropped his socked foot directly onto the center of Harley’s face.

Harley swatted at Peter’s foot blearily, considered it quite suspiciously, and then slowly pulled himself to his feet (aided by grabbing shameless handfuls of the leg of Peter's sweatpants).

“There you are,” Peter said with a grin as Harley rose to his full height, still almost an entire head above the brown, mussed curls of the other. With one hand, he reached out and squeezed Harley’s sun-freckled cheeks, giggling as the skin squished up and his lips puckered. 

Harley frowned through it, looking disturbingly similar to a pissed-off fish. 

Peter patted his cheeks twice before spinning on a heel and crossing to the en-suite bathroom, from which he collected the two black, leather kits the boys had assembled the night before. Within them jangled disposable razors, shaving cream canisters, scissors, washcloths, and bandages ( _in case of disaster_ , explained Harley. _Have you seen his beard? If he doesn’t know how to properly use a razor then I doubt everything I have ever known_ , Peter responded, to which Harley could only shrug and say _with Tony, I always expect disaster_.).

Peter tossed one of the bags at Harley, who fumbled it before barely catching it between his sleep-heavy fingers. He shook it beside his ear, squinting as if it would help him detect the contents. An exasperated sigh fell from Peter’s lips. “It’s still packed the same way you did it last night. I didn’t move anything.”

Harley gave a satisfied grunt, sounding more and more like a caveman as the minutes ticked by.

“Let’s go to Tony, then?” Peter asked.

A huffed breath, colored all of the sly shades of silver and ice and an eyebrow half-arched with sweet, youthful mischief.

Peter marched to the door, slinging an arm around Harley’s shoulders to pull him along beside him. Harley’s head tipped sideways onto Peter’s shoulder, nuzzling into his curls. The outline of his grin pressed against Peter’s shirtsleeve and set off a soft sort of contentment in his stomach, like steaming tea and quiet music and wildflower wishes. 

Regular Harley was a boundlessly affectionate creature by nature, but Sleepy Harley was about as near to a teddy bear as a human could get. It was more unnatural for the two of them to _not_ touch than it was for them to be sitting with their legs looped or their shoulders stacked or their hands resting in the other’s hair. 

Perhaps it was because Harley had spent so long dreading the brush of his father’s skin on his own, but Peter seemed to wipe off every wicked touch in favor of that sweet, soft cotton and flower petals and milkshake mustache feeling that he emitted like a beacon— like one of those goddamn motion-sensor air-fresheners, letting out a puff of Harley’s Ideal Scent Blend every time Peter entered a room. It was astounding to Harley how easy it was to forget the feeling of having his fingers drawn over sharp glass edges now that everything he touched was made of cashmere and lace. 

Or maybe it was something both bigger and softer than Harley might like to believe: some universal draw, like the dust of exploded stars straining to recombine into their original whole, they _they_ had created Peter and him to be the other’s perfect half and were steadfast in maintaining that plot; he and Peter were meant to be one, and always had been, even before they had known of the other, and now their very atoms strained to be as close to each other’s as possible.

And who would they be to deny nature and science?

So Harley dug himself ever closer to Peter as the elevator doors closed behind them, letting a contented sigh tumble from his lips as Peter’s chest shook with a restrained chuckle.

The elevator opened on Tony and Pepper’s floor with the typical nearly-inaudible melody of bells. Peter turned to Harley, a toothy grin so wide on his face that it looked closer to a grimace. 

“Hngh,” Harley said, scowling at Peter’s early-morn energy as if it were an evil crafted in the hands of God with the intent of breaking Harley down into a vegetative state and then cooking him into a nice stew. 

Peter grinned wider and tweaked Harley’s nose. “You’re so grumpy. Like a cat.” Peter’s eyes widened a fraction. “You are such a cat. I bet your patronus is a cat. I bet you were a cat in a past life- _mmph_!” 

Harley slapped a hand over Peter’s mouth to shut him up, hissing like a teapot through his clenched teeth all the while.

Peter stuck his tongue out and licked Harley’s palm, which resulted in Harley letting out a wild scream of disgust that ranged pitches like a slide whistle and settled somewhere deep in his chest with a gravelly, desperate whine. 

He wiped the hand dry on Peter’s shirt.

They continued down the hallway as if nothing had happened.

When they reached the end of the hall, the bathroom door before them like an untouchable monolith, they came to a synchronized pause. 

“Tell me the plan,” Peter said.

Harley glared at him.

“You gotta talk eventually,” Peter said evenly.

Harley continued to glare.

“Harley,” Peter whined, and Harley acquiesced with a sigh that could have blown over the Great Wall.

“We knock on the door. He lets us in. We walk into his bathroom and start shaving with him. He has no choice. He becomes dad,” Harley said monotonously. “That’s it. That’s the plan.”

“What about the _other thing_?” Peter asked cryptically.

Harley stared.

“We have to convince him to cut our hair. That’s, like, the most dad thing in the whole world. At least,” Peter scratched an eyebrow quizzically. “That’s what Google said. And it’s not like either of us know any better, so.”

“Couldn’t we have asked, like, Ned for advice? Someone with an actual dad instead of Google?”

“Google has a dad,” Peter said, pouting. “Google has two dads. Google alone has more dads than us combined.”

“Never thought I’d be jealous of a search engine.”

“Well, if this goes right, then we’ll have one whole dad to share and, boy, wouldn’t that be swell.”

Harley looked at Peter dryly. “Super swell.”

Peter gave him a half-grin. “Okay, let’s go in. Wait, should you knock or me? Because if you go in first he might think it’s a joke but if I go first he might take it too seriously and get nervous-”

“For the love of shit, Pete,” Harley grumbled and hammered his fist upon the door three times. “Tony, put your dick away; we’re coming in.”

“Harley!” Peter hissed, poking him in the ribs, chastising.

Harley pushed the door open in one clean movement, revealing Tony standing in the middle of the overwhelmingly white-tiled bathroom in nothing but some black boxers and a white t-shirt, his face scrunched up as he ran a razor blade through the thick coating of shaving cream applied meticulously along the lines of his beard.

“Oh,” Tony said in greeting.

Without further ado, the boys parked themselves on either side of Tony, glad, for once, that Tony was extravagant enough to choose a mirror that was sized to comfortably fit the entirety of the New York Giants before it side-by-side. 

“Uh, not that I don’t appreciate your presence,” Tony said warily, “but what the crap are you doing in my _private bathroom_ at-“ he checked his phone, “seven-eighteen? And- what, may I delve to ask, is in those bags? Because I trust you less than I trust Fox News and I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s bombs- oh,” Tony cut off as the boys pulled the canisters of shaving cream out. They placed the rest of their instruments on the already wet counter-top. 

At once, they both started smearing shaving cream along their upper lips and chins, much more haphazardly than Tony with his geometrically sound angles. 

Tony blinked twice, hard. Then, in an uncharacteristically choked voice, asked, “do you even _have_ facial hair to shave?”

Harley quirked a brow and met Tony’s glassy eyes in the mirror. Warmth blossomed in his chest like a rose turned toward the sun. “For your information, Anthony, I have a nice little patch of scruff coming in on my lip, and it deserves all of the respect your depreciative ass can muster.”

“I don’t have any,” chimed Peter with a grin. “But I came in to be with you anyway.”

“We’re _bonding_ ,” added Harley, tilting his head to shave along the sharp corner of his jaw.

Tony sniffled a bit. 

Harley and Peter met eyes in the mirror, mirth dancing without abandon between them. Not even two minutes and they already had Tony tearing up. Oh, this was going to be a good day.

“Cool. Okay, cool. Cool. Cool. This is- cool,” Tony managed.

Peter’s grin was cheeky and blinding and succinctly encapsulated everything good in the world. He moved to brush his hair out of his eyes with the back of his hand, but carefully smeared shaving cream into the curls. “Oh, sh- shine a light,” he muttered dramatically, peering at Tony in his periphery. “I really need a haircut, ASAP. My hair is just way too long. It gets in the way of _everything, all the time._ ”

“Mine is becoming a _hazard_ ,” Harley agreed, jumping on the bandwagon. He shot Peter a covert wink as Tony visibly stiffened. “I don’t know what I’ll do if it falls into my eyes while I’m crossing the street again and Peter isn’t there to save me from almost getting pancaked by a double-decker bus for the second time-”

“What?” Tony said. He blinked. Then it hit him. A hand clapped over his chest, massaging the muscles there. “You almost- bus?” he sputtered, eyes so wide that they were in true danger of popping right out of his head.

“Too far,” Peter muttered, the sound of Tony’s racing pulse magnified in his ears. Then, louder, “we already knew he was a hopeless idiot, Tony. He was fine. But, I mean… it _would_ be safer if we just… cut our hair.”

“How about I take you to the barber this afternoon, then?” Tony offered, still breathing shakily, “so that you don’t give me a goddamn heart attack before I even have my coffee?”

“Can’t you do it?” Peter asked, the words coming out in one rapid stream, blending into something barely comprehensible.

“Uh, what?” Tony said, stock-still.

“Well,” said Harley. “We were thinking. Maybe you could, y’know. Cut our hair. So we don’t even have to leave the house.”

Tony was laughing. “Me. You want me to cut your hair?” He leaned forward, letting the counter catch his weight as he wheezed. “That’s… that’s a good joke. High-brow humor. Very classy.”

“Don’t you cut your own hair?” Harley asked, squinting.

“Don’t I- what do you-” Tony sputtered, his laughter cutting off abruptly. “Of _course_ I cut my own hair. Do you really think that I, of all the suspicious schmucks in this world, after every time I’ve almost been killed by people I thought I liked, would let someone else near my head with pointy objects? Yeah, no.”

“Then you do know how to cut hair _and_ you will absolutely be cutting our hair this morning, whether you like it or not.”

There was a beat. Tony gaped.

The moment he understood what the boys were really asking- not for a haircut, but for _Tony_ to do this for them, to take care of them the way they craved (and a quiet part of him craved equally in turn)- was visible in his eyes. His entire body melted so that he held his- still shaving cream smeared- cheek in his free hand. 

“So you’re saying… you trust _me_ near your head with sharp things?”

“Yes,” said Peter immediately.

“Maybe,” said Harley, but it was accented with a firm nod.

“Huh,” said Tony. Then he grinned, an awe-filled thing that made Peter’s eyes sting and Harley’s chest ache and something in them started to sing but they tuned it out and let Tony just goddamn beam at them for a minute, all bliss and thrill warm like laying flat in sand under the summer sun. 

“Okay,” Tony finally said, shaking his head slightly as if to clear it. “Okay. Let me finish with my _barba_ \- shit, my beard- and _ti taglierò i capelli_ after I- after it’s- shaved.” 

Peter and Harley just stared at him, accustomed to this stuttery, unsure Tony. It wasn’t like they had never seen him nervous, after all— that was far from the case. They could decode the way he clutched at his left arm or grit his teeth or slipped between languages or tilted his head as if it was a pre-established secret code between them all. 

It didn’t stop them from sharing a conspiratory smirk at seeing Tony reduced to a puddle at their feet. 

All three continued to shave in companionable quiet, Harley humming a few bars of some familiar but elusive song under his breath as he ran the blade over his skin. His lips were mashed together to hold back his grin but his eyes were soft and crinkled at the corners in a kid-on-Christmas variation of his usual wide-lipped and cocked-brow grin. 

It was easily the fastest shave Tony had ever managed in his life, including the haphazard one he had done the day he was running late for a brunch date with Pepper and nearly sheared his lips off. 

The boys still finished first, wiping their faces with towels and perching on the counter with crossed legs and sly grins to wait for Tony. 

He blushed under their scrutiny, his face lightly pink after all of the shaving cream had been swiped away. 

“Okay,” Tony said, scratching at his eyebrow with the un-bladed end of his razor. “Okay. So. Uh,” he added eloquently. 

Peter let out a soft laugh. “You’ve gotta tell us what to do. May usually cuts my hair but she does it weird- like, kitchen shears and spray bottle weird- and I have a sneaking suspicion that you have more experience cutting hair than her.”

Tony chewed at his lip. “Well, it’ll be easier if your hair is wet.”

Harley slid unceremoniously from the counter and flicked on the sink, dunking his head under the water. 

If Peter had moved faster, he would have missed the way the color drained from Tony’s tanned skin until he was the color of wet paper and his hand twitched as if going to reach for Harley’s hunched, submerged form. 

Peter’s heart sunk. “Hey,” he whispered, just quiet enough so that Harley, muttering a pained complaint after bumping his head on the faucet, wouldn’t hear. 

Tony’s gaze flicked up to Peter, wide, terror-filled eyes and quivering lip and chest still as if holding his breath like it was something expendable, irreplaceable, precious. 

Peter shot him a consolatory grin and gently dropped a hand onto Harley’s back, the silent message plain. _He’s okay. I can pull him back. No one is holding him down. You’re okay, Tony, you’re okay_. 

The breath that puffed out of Tony’s lips was like a psalm, lilting and reverent and sweet. He gave a shaky nod, his right hand clutching at his left wrist for a moment before letting go. He nodded again, this time more solidly. 

Peter’s grin was blinding. 

Tony thought his weak heart might just give up then, for if Peter could look at him like that, with that sort of reckless abandon, even though Tony was mortifyingly ripped at the seams, then his life had been worth living and nothing could ever, ever compare. 

Harley emerged from the spray, hair plastered to his forehead and neck, water dripping in rivulets down over his ears and over the soft curves of his brow bone and his little nose, his chapped lips spread wide in a smile, completely unaware of the transpirings of the past moment. “Is this good?” he asked Tony, a hopeful sort of gleam in his eyes, like he wanted the approval. 

Tony nodded, the infectiousness of those two elvish grins slowing his bounding heart into something languid and sweet. Somehow it bubbled from him in a small grin of his own. “Yeah, that’s… that’s good, kiddo. C'mere,” he said, grabbing a clean towel and unfolding it as Harley moseyed over to stand before Tony.

There was a moment of silence as Tony craned his neck to look Harley in the face, the boy a good four inches taller than the man. Tony pushed Harley back gently, sitting him on the counter so that his head was easier to reach. 

He plopped the towel over Harley’s head, covering the entirety of it until he looked like he was wearing an impressionistic interpretation of a mummy costume. With the most gentle pressure he could manage, he scrubbed the towel along Harley’s water-softened waves. He lifted the towel away from Harley’s face, a startled laugh flying from him when he saw the cross-eyed face Harley had pulled to scare him. 

Peter watched with an unswallowable grin on his face, his cheeks aching from the force of it. This was exactly what they had wanted. Tony, shocked out of the careful, calculated movements and words he deposited like processed fortune cookie wisdoms and, instead, being his real self with them. Not overthinking anything. Just caring for them without wondering what bad could come from it, or about how to differentiate his every whim from that of his father. 

The real, true Tony could not be farther from Howard Stark. And this was their chance to prove it to him. 

Harley sat like a worshipped prince while Tony worked his way around him, a towel wrapped over his shoulders like a cloak and the soft sound of scissors snipping working like a lullaby to melt the ice from his bones, draw warmth back into his muscles. He was very nearly purring as Tony ran his fingers softly against his scalp, tugging curls this way and that to keep everything neat and symmetrical. 

When he was finished, he ruffled Harley’s half-dry hair. He was still staring at him in that disbelieving way, as if he looked away for too long then Harley would disappear or, worse, change his mind about… all of this, whatever it was. It was too good to be true— those boys, his incredible luck at having found them and somehow enchanted them enough to make them want to stay. To be with him. By choice. Doing dumb, far from exciting things like shaving and cutting hair. 

Harley shot him a cheeky grin as if he could not only read every thought that passed through Tony but wanted to let him know, too, that the emotion behind it was reciprocated. He kicked out one of his socked feet, nudging Tony’s knee. “Thanks, old man,” he said. “As long as you didn’t cut it like yours then I bet I’ll look like the biggest stud on this side of the Hudson.”

Tony poked him in the ribs, relishing in the giggle he received in response. _My kid. My kids. God, my kids. How did I get so goddamn lucky_? “Don’t worry. I would never do that to you. You could never compete with the poise and class with which I wear this ‘do,” he said. 

Harley rolled his eyes. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.” He slid off the counter and patted the empty seat. “Your turn, Pete.”

Peter grinned wide. He crossed to the sink, making the decision to splash water onto his head rather than dunk himself like Harley, if only to save Tony’s heart. 

Harley looked at his hair in the mirror, running his fingers over the short sides and pulling on the waves that sat flat against his forehead. “Tony, wait. What the hell. This looks good. You actually did a good job. Do you moonlight as a barber or something? Side job to pick up the extra cash you so clearly need?”

Tony snorted. “Yeah, sure. It’s my job to look suave and camera-ready at all times. I keep up with the trends-“

“Wouldn’t know that if you didn’t say it.“ 

“Excuse you, _patatino_. I know how to make someone look presentable is all I’m saying,” Tony said, spreading his arms wide, the scissors hanging loosely from his fingers. 

“What does _patatino_ mean?” Harley asked, scrunching his brows together in a frown. 

Tony grinned widely, a little bit evil. “Little potato.”

“You suck.”

“You damned yourself to it the moment you pulled out that potato gun.”

“I didn’t have that many _options_ , not even Walmart sells bullets to an _eleven year old_.”

Peter finally finished matting down his wild curls and took that moment to plop down on the counter, pulling his knees up to his chest and closing his eyes in that disgustingly adorable expression of contentment that made Tony feel like he was on the verge of fainting or puking or kissing his forehead or something. 

“Oh, you’re precious,” Tony said, deadpan but adoration leaking out of his every orifice like happiness or plague or a virus equally as nasty and toxic. 

A blush painted its way across Peter’s nose, pink on the curve of his ears. “That’s not news. I am a soft sweet summer child after all.” He grinned, all teeth and crinkled nose. 

Tony shook his head, feeling distinctly muddled, having a hard time tuning into reality when it was something so ideal. It must be some sort of dream, the kind that feels like sea breezes and fireflies when you’re in it, but shocks like a bucket of ice water once you’re awake. That was the only explanation. Tony’s life doesn’t get this good. It’s improbable, if not impossible. 

But, because he’s only a man and men are weak, he basks in it while he can. 

He took the liberty of carding through Peter’s curls more excessively than strictly necessary while cutting his hair simply for the reason that it made Peter look like a goddamn puppy getting a belly rub and that made Tony feel like he had sparklers and Cola in his stomach and he quite liked that feeling, even if it scared him halfway through hell.

By the time he finished with Peter’s hair, the boy was half leaning against Tony’s shoulder, eyes shut and a carefree half-grin ghosting on his lips. Tony tweaked his ear to let him know the haircut was done. “ _Ho finito, cucciolotto_ ,” he offered. 

“Why does he get a cute nickname and I get called potato?” Harley whined, rubbing his nose with his fist in an unusually childish gesture. 

Tony shrugged, squeezing Peter’s shoulder and ushering him around to look at himself in the mirror. “It’s the way of the world, bud. You don’t choose the nickname; the nickname chooses you.”

Harley grumbled something about _potatoes_ and _so versatile_ and _better than smelly puppies anyway screw you Parker getting to be the cute one_. 

Peter was shaking his hair out in front of the mirror, those brown eyes wide as saucers and gleaming with barely contained glee. “Wow! Tony! You really are good at this!”

Tony raised an eyebrow but felt warm at the praise. “What, did you think it was an accident that Harley’s came out so good?”

“I- I don’t know!” Peter sputtered. “I guess I’m just- wow! Thank you!” He kept running his hands through the curls that Tony had left long, spilling over the cropped edges like streamers. 

Harley looked between the two of them, feeling that same inexplicable sense of complete calm that he had felt upon returning to New York from his brief stint in Tennessee a few days prior. This was good. This was _right_. This was how he wanted to feel always, warm and safe and a little sleepy but surrounded by his weird, lopsided family made of puzzle pieces from all different puzzles that still somehow fit together to make one helluva beautifully fucked up picture. Their edges matched, all of them. They clicked into place. They made sense in a nonsensical way, like modern art, or ChinesexLatin fusion food. 

Yeah. This was right. 

He found himself stepping towards them, clambering onto Tony’s back and burrowing his face in his shoulders. Tony huffed and staggered under the weight, but grabbed the bends of Harley’s knees to hold him in place all the same. Peter gave a blazing grin and wrapped himself around the two of them from the front, face all smushed into Tony’s chest and tiny fists grabbing onto the back of Harley’s t-shirt. 

One big mess. But one that still worked. 

Step II:  
“So, we had Pepper clear your schedule for the day,” Harley said without preamble as they sat down together for breakfast minutes later. 

Harley was nursing a cup of coffee with enough sugar to give a heart attack to a water buffalo, Peter pouring Lucky Charms right from the box into his mouth. Tony was watching them both with a strange sort of concern in his eyes as he worked on his own cup of coffee, slowly chewing through a bowl of cut fruit all the while. 

“You had Pepper- but I thought I had- why?” he asked, a muscle in his jaw jumping. 

“We have an itinerary all set up,” Peter said sweetly. “A full day, just the three of us. All sorts of fun activities planned.”

“Nothing dangerous, just fun,” Harley quantified. 

Tony pursed his lips. “Am I going to regret this?”

Peter’s grin hardened into something worried and a bit affronted. “I mean, I hope not.”

Something in Peter’s expression made Tony soften. “Okay. That sounds- that sounds perfect. If it’s okay with Pepper then it’s certainly fine with me. Am I allowed to know what we’re doing?”

“Nope,” said Harley. “It’s a surprise.”

“Lots of surprises,” Peter added, mollified now that Tony was slightly on-board. 

“Oh, goody,” Tony said. “My body is just tingling with anticipation— oh, wait, no. That’s anxiety.”

Harley huffed a breath and lifted his feet to drop them in Tony’s lap. “Come on, Tony. We wouldn’t make you do anything scary. Or stupid. Or embarrassing.”

“Yeah,” Peter agreed. “Because then we would be embarrassed too, and we can embarrass ourselves just fine without doing it purposely.”

“That is true,” Tony acquiesced. 

“So calm your tits and let’s dip! First thing is soon and I am particularly excited about it because I have never done this thing before.” Harley prodded Tony with a toe before pulling himself to his feet and stretching spectacularly. He downed the rest of his coffee in one hearty gulp before clapping his hands sharply and gunning it towards the elevator. 

Peter shared a glance with Tony and shrugged, dropping the (now empty) cereal box in the trash and then following Harley. 

When the doors closed behind them and Tony was alone at the table, he huffed out a delirious sigh- a cocktail of laughter and nerves and weariness and dread- and let his head fall into his hands. He pressed his knuckles into his eyes, groaning. 

What the hell did he think he was doing? Oh, right, he wasn’t thinking, because if he was thinking, then he could be shit sure he wouldn’t be going along with these secret plans and whatever else just because the kids shot him a pleading-eyed glance and pouted their lips. 

There was a day- not at all long ago- where Tony refused to get into a vehicle if he or Happy wasn’t behind the wheel and he was sure of the destination. He certainly wouldn’t do it if JARVIS or F.R.I. weren’t coded into it to take control if things went awry. It was too risky. Not at all safe. His life had proved that beyond speculation. But there was something about his boys that made his brain short circuit, every meticulously-packaged anxiety fizzling away and leaving a crater in its place. The problem was that the boys were still wild and youthful and daring enough to fill every one of those empty spaces with something new, meaning his self-preservative fears had nowhere to be stowed away in their neat little tupperware stacks, the lids clicked closed and maybe even taped shut to make absolutely certain that they were safe and untouchable. 

Now he had nowhere to put his tupperware, like a fucking hoarder grandma. He couldn’t ask the kids to hold onto them for him; he could never, ever put that sort of burden on them. He couldn’t just deposit them somewhere- buried beneath a tree or dropped at the bottom of the sea- and expect them to be kept safe. Neither could he leave them in the care of Pepper or Rhodey.

God, he was fucked, wasn’t he? He finally, really had to get rid of his tupperware? 

Some small voice that sounded an awful lot like Pepper whispered in his ear that _sometimes letting go of your fears isn’t dangerous; it’s relieving, freeing, and healthy_. That growing stronger sometimes meant admitting your weaknesses. That moving forward didn’t mean forgetting the past, but relinquishing the choking grasp you held it in so that you could hold the future even closer. 

He imagined a big bonfire in his mind, tall and roaring and bold, and, one by one, dropped his tupperware into it. It was refreshing in a sick sort of way. He reveled in the destruction. 

Sometimes you need to crack a few eggs to make an omelet, after all. 

When he returned back downstairs after getting dressed, the boys were waiting for him, slumped on the couch. Peter was already eating his second breakfast: a granola bar and a very purple smoothie, which Harley was eyeing suspiciously. 

“What took you so long?” Harley groused, pushing himself to his feet and then turning to offer Peter a hand. 

“Did a bit of spring cleaning,” Tony offered breezily, adjusting the shoulders of his cardigan and rolling the sleeves. 

He hadn’t been sure how to dress, considering he had no clue what the plan was. Knowing the boys, it was nothing fancy, so he had settled on a cardigan-t-shirt-corduroy-pants combo that had him feeling explicitly like a suburban father. Look the part to play the part and all that jazz. 

It did seem he was right in his calculations, he noticed with smugness, when the boys were dressed in characteristic thick-knit, oversized sweaters and jeans with their scuffed sneakers. He couldn’t help but be relieved that they were doing something normal. It would be refreshing to do something that wasn’t fight terrorists or have panic attacks or build protective body armor with them. 

Peter was practically vibrating with excitement. “We should leave now so we can catch the subway— we were thinking about going full-civilian today, if that’s okay?” He had a hopeful gleam in his eye to match the quirk in his brows and the grin ghosting at his lips. How could Tony ever say no to that? 

“Of course that’s fine,” he said, feeling something unidentifiable in him relax as he looked at Peter. 

And that’s how he found himself standing sandwiched between two of his most favorite people on a precariously fast-moving train, swaying side to side and massaging a knot in his chest but laughing real, true laughs as Peter and Harley debated the practicality of tangerines versus clementines and whether or not there was really all that much of a difference. 

When they got off the subway, they walked, Peter in the lead with his bounced steps and long strides, for a few blocks before Tony was absolutely certain of where they were going. 

The goddamn zoo. 

He was taking his kids to the goddamn zoo. 

Or, they were taking _him_ to the goddamn zoo. 

He wasn’t sure if he was about to laugh or cry. He settled for looking between the two grinning boys, feeling a bit weak at the knees and a slight burn in his eyes which he would play off as the smog if he were ever asked about it. But this? This blatantly and wholly- dare he say- _paternal_ activity was real and heartwarming and terrifying and—

He grabbed them each around the shoulders, pulling them roughly into his sides as they walked, dropping a firm kiss onto the top of each of their heads. 

They grinned up at him— the pure, childlike grins he always wanted for them instead of the heavy, creased ones they’d been wearing of late. 

“Stop one: the Bronx Zoo!” Peter crowed, grabbing a fistful of Harley’s jacket behind Tony’s back and squeezing the three of them even tighter together. 

Tony shook his head, finding himself uncharacteristically speechless. 

“Do you like it, Tony?” Harley asked, but it was hushed and genuine and a little bit nervous and Tony nearly dropped to the ground with how it melted him. 

“I love it,” he said thickly. “It’s perfect.”

And when Harley looked at him as if he had hung the stars rather than just agreed to go to the goddamn zoo, he needed to clear his throat and look away to hide the tears of pure gratitude that sprung into his eyes. His gaze fell upon the sky and he found himself thanking a god he hadn’t believed in for many, many years now for having brought those boys to him. 

They spent three entire hours at the zoo. They, at Tony’s insistence, saw every single animal. 

By one in the afternoon, when the sun was high and warm on their shoulders, their phones were full of pictures and videos snapped of the others. 

Tony’s favorite was one of Peter pressed up to the glass of the tarantula exhibit, caught in the middle of trying to communicate with the hairy thing to no success, Harley standing beside him with a comically quizzical look on his face. 

Peter and Harley, however, favored a video they had caught of Tony sitting cross-legged in front of a Magellanic Penguin, staring at it with unabashed awe. 

“Hey, Tony,” Peter called softly, the video all soft muttering and squawked bird calls and blue light. “Do you like that one?”

“Mmhmm,” Tony hummed back, not turning to the camera, one hand pressed on the glass. He looked about ten years younger, the wrinkles on his face ironed out and the bags beneath his eyes filled in. 

Pepper, Rhodey, and May seemed to like that video best, too, responding to the text bearing it with an abundance of hearts and smiley faces. 

Harley grinned as they watched Tony make faces at the penguin, grabbing Peter’s hand and squeezing it in three quick pulses. 

Peter smiled back. The message was clear. 

_We did good_. 

Step III:  
Once they had exhausted the Zoo, Tony decided it was time for the enhanced arachnid kid to have some lunch. 

Peter grimaced guiltily but the rumble in his stomach that came from the simple mention of food was enough confirmation that their next stop would be to grab a meal. 

They settled on a food truck that was serving Vietnamese, seeing as Peter nearly keeled over from the scent of their pulled pork ( _I think heaven is just a bottomless dish of that pulled pork_ , he had said faintly) and they had tofu for Harley, who was still, unbelievably, riding the vegan train. 

They settled on a bench with their food, hip-to-hip-to-hip, grateful for once that all three of them were rather spindly and narrow. 

Tony enjoyed his chicken slowly, as a normal person might. 

Peter was wolfing down his pork and rice with unmatched intensity, unrivaled focus. 

Harley, with the precision of a surgeon with a scalpel, picked through his noodles to remove the cancer- sorry, the cilantro- from them. It was a very important job. If a single speck of the disease- sorry, the herb- was left, who knew what the repercussions might be. Death, almost surely. Nuclear holocaust could not be ruled out.

Tony couldn't help but roll his eyes at them, especially considering there was a smattering of what was almost certainly paparazzi across the street, clicking away wildly with their cameras and capturing the entire thing for posterity. 

Even that didn’t stop him, however, from reaching over and wiping away at a bit of sauce that had spilled onto Peter’s collar from his messy chopstick work. And when the tabloids would print the image of it- Tony Stark, gently cleaning up a boy that looked an awful lot like him while sitting with another who had similar skin tone and bone structure to Pepper Potts- he couldn’t even find it in himself to be annoyed, clipping out the picture and sticking it into his wallet while having F.R.I.D.A.Y. remind Pepper to make a statement about that. 

Step IV:  
When their next stop was a bowling alley, Tony couldn’t help but smirk. “You nerds,” he said, staring at the obnoxiously printed seats and glowing neon lights striped across the walls. “You absolute nerds. I’m going to destroy you both.”

“Bowling is math, so I think we’re all pretty evenly matched,” Peter argued, poking Tony in the side as they put on their smelly bowling shoes. 

Tony dropped a hand onto Peter’s freshly cut hair and pet it. He hobbled around on one foot, struggling to figure out the velcro strap as he spoke. “Oh, you poor, naive thing. You- you really think you could- shit- beat _me_ at bowling? Good luck. Shit. I’m a master— I’m a goddamn champion-“

“Have you ever even been bowling?” Harley asked dryly, watching Tony fumble with the shoe. 

“Absolutely not. Never in my life. But how hard could it be?”

“You’ve never ever been bowling?” Peter howled. “Uncle Rhodey never took you? You never brought _Pepper_ bowling?” 

Tony raised his eyebrows. 

“Well, it’s a good thing you’re going with us, then,” Peter said fiercely. “This is- this is monumentous. This is going in the history books.”

“We’re wasting our time,” Harley notes, pointing to the ticking clock above their lane. 

“Uh, hi- _uh, hi_ ,” a specky employee squeaked at that very moment, backpedaling three steps when they realized Tony Friggin’ Stark was in their bowling alley. “Do you- um. Do you guys want the bumpers up?” Their face was red as summer cherries and Harley feared for a moment that they would drop faint on the ground. 

“We definitely want bumpers,” Peter decided. He turned to look at them. “That way we can use real math and angles and see who really is the best bowler,” he explained cheekily. 

Tony cracked his knuckles, finally strapped into his shoes. “Let’s get our jog on, then,” he said with a crooked grin. 

They were easily the loudest group in the entire bowling alley. It would have been embarrassing had they not been having the time of their lives. 

They had a big laugh when Tony staggered under the weight of the first ball he chose— a marbled red one because he’s nothing if not his brand. Harley and Tony silently brooded when Peter lifted the heaviest balls as if they were marshmallows. 

It was a stiff competition, with a lot of shouted insults and attempts to make the others mess up, but they ended the round with Harley snagging the crown with a solid 203 points, followed by Peter with 180 and Tony with a respectable 96. 

“That wasn’t bad for your first try!” Peter offered him, grinning devilishly. 

“Yeah, maybe next time you’ll beat my grandma’s high score!” Harley choked through his unrestrained laughter. 

Tony couldn’t even glare at them, too bursting with the flower fields and soft songs they’d somehow managed to plant in him to allow even a fake show of anger. He grabbed them both around the neck instead and gently knocked their skulls against the other as they giggled and strained to escape his grasp. 

Tony had never felt so full. 

Step V:  
Their next stop brought them back to the tower, which surprised Tony as it was just after four in the afternoon and he figured the boys were both of the variety to have packed every minute of the day with activities, too full of electricity to sit still for long. 

He was further puzzled when he realized their plans were not, in fact, done, the boys commanding him to put on fancy clothes because their next activity required it. 

Tony did as instructed, putting on his usual fancy dinner outfit (he wasn’t an idiot, he could deduce that the combination of the time and the dress code implied they were about to stuff themselves silly with food none of them would prefer to pizza but all of them would pretend to enjoy for the sake of the aesthetic) and some leather loafers that Pepper liked to say made him look like a sugar daddy from Napoli. He never understood why that was a problem. 

Really, he shouldn’t have been surprised when the boys came in dressed to the nines but with undone ties around their necks. 

His heart rate quickened as if it knew exactly what was coming next. 

Oh, this was it. This was the line that, when crossed, made all of this- _this_ \- irrevocable. If he tied their ties, it was cemented, sure, and forever. It would be like carving his Hancock onto their adoption papers, for God’s sake. 

But when they were standing there, looking up at him all bright eyed and false innocence and _we have no idea what we’re doing_ and _please, Tony, won’t you teach us_? he would have signed the papers on the spot without blinking an eye. 

“Okay,” he choked out, and reached with trembling hands for Peter to come closer. “You first, _vita mia_.” 

Tony balked. He hadn’t meant to call him that. Hadn’t heard those words since his mother had died. _My life_ , he called him. _My life. God, you’re my life, Peter. Both of you are my life, you’re mine. My kids. My boys_. 

At the nickname, Peter’s gaze flicked up to meet Tony’s and something visceral and corporeal passed between them. It was like sharing breath, personal enough to be profane. Intoxicating and heavy and sickly saccharine and it was _life_ it was _living_ it was _everything, God, it was everything_. 

Neither commented on the watery eyes of the other. They didn’t need to. 

“Okay,” Tony said again, voice shaking through the two syllables. He undid his own tie and adjusted the strands. He stood himself close to Peter, so close that they were almost brushing hands. “Here we go. You take this piece and the other, and wrap them like this- good, Pete, that’s right- and then take this one- yup, just like that- and- through the loop, buddy, good- now you pull this one longer- that’s it. There you go,” he said with a watery grin, adjusting Peter’s tie. 

When he finished, he allowed one of his hands to cup Peter’s cheek for a moment and just grinned at him, genuine and wide and wholehearted. “ _Patata’s_ turn now,” Tony said finally, patting Peter twice on the cheek. 

Harley quickly took Peter’s place, frowning down at Tony. “I’m not even a little potato anymore? I’m a whole bigass potato now? That’s not nearly as cute,” he said. 

“Shrink back down a few inches and then we’ll talk,” Tony said, undoing his tie once again. He walked Harley through the steps the same way he had done Peter, pretending the whole while to believe that Harley didn’t actually know how to tie a tie. 

When he clapped Harley on the cheek in turn, he said in his sugariest voice, “don’t go into theater, twerp. You won’t make it a day with those acting skills. And dumb blond doesn’t suit you, anyway. You’re much more of a boy-next-door type.” 

Harley half-heartedly squawked in protest as Tony laughed one of his big, hearty laughs that came straight from the pit of his being, Peter grinning wildly at the two of them. 

Step VI:  
When they arrived at the restaurant, the regret was plain on all of their faces. Oh, why didn’t they just go to Dominoes? 

“Dominoes is a very classy establishment,” Tony offered. “The checkered tiles, grease on the walls, gum under the tables— basically five star material.” 

“No, we’re doing this,” Harley grumbled. “Pepper told us you like this place so we’re sticking it out to the end.” 

“Very noble of you. Are you bringing chivalry back in the meantime?”

“Singlehandedly.”

“Hey!” Peter frowned. 

“Singlehandedly plus Peter,” Harley amended. 

Tony rolled his eyes and pushed up his sleeves. With the casual nonchalance that only he could master while being stared at by hordes of hoity-toity, bedazzled Baby Boomers, he flicked his menu open. 

The boys followed suit, attempting to recreate Tony’s devil-may-care attitude with no luck, Peter accidentally whacking Harley in the shoulder with his menu. 

Tony snorted a laugh, but that same expression of adoration was as blatant and radiant as it was earlier in the day. The boys warmed under it. 

“Uh, Tony?” Peter said after a moment of comfortable silence during which they perused the menu. 

“Yeah, squirt?”

Peter squinted. “I can’t read any of this.”

“It’s French, dipshit,” Harley answered in an exaggerated accent, trilling the _r_ like a drumroll rather than swallowing it. 

“Well, can you read it? Since you take French?” Peter asked, genuine. 

“I can pronounce it but I sure as heck don’t know what it means.”

Tony smirked. “C’mere. I can translate for you two.” 

“You speak French?” Peter asked, eyes wide. 

“ _Un petit peu_ ,” Tony answered. ( _Ha! I know what that means!_ Harley cried.) 

“How many languages do you know?” Peter said. 

“Fluently? English, Italian, Spanish, and Mandarin. I’ve got a little Japanese, French, Russian, and German in there too.” 

“Wow,” Peter breathed. 

“Alright, Renaissance Man, just tell us what to order,” Harley grumbled. 

“You’re just butthurt that Tony knows more French than you,” Peter said. 

“Two whole years! And what do I know how to say? _Sacre bleu! Mes pantalons sont en feu!_ ”

Harley’s French accent was absolutely hilarious to Tony and Peter, all scrabbled through with little bits of Tennessee. 

“I had a neighbor who was Creole back in Rose Hill and she never laughed at my accent,” Harley mumbled, blushing as the other two struggled to hold in their mirth. “I was mostly kidding. I can speak, y’know, _regular_ French, just not restaurant French.”

“Okay, smartass,” Tony said, flicking his brows up, pressing his lips to hold in the remnants of his smile. He leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest. “If you’re so… multilingual, then ask me for a spoon in French.”

Harley had the answer waiting on his tongue. “ _Sucer mon cul_.”

Tony let out a shout of laughter that echoed like bells above the otherwise muted throng of the restaurant. He didn’t seem to care, continuing to chuckle under his breath for an easy moment as Peter looked on curiously, not understanding the joke. With a delicate, flourished finger Tony wiped a tear from the corner of his eye.

“ _Tu es une petite merde, Keener_ ,” Tony said, grinning. 

As expected, dinner was fine. Being together was better. 

Step VII:  
The couches in the living room were long. 

They pretended they weren’t. 

All three of them sat knotted together, Tony in the middle with his arms around either boy, Peter’s feet in Tony’s lap and Harley’s legs across them both, each with their head resting against Tony’s chest. It was comfortable in its absolute disjointedness, all crooked knees and cocked elbows, but none of them would have moved for anything. 

Tony chose the first movie that night, something that didn’t happen often but always ended up being fruitful in that it was either horribly outdated with jokes no one else understood or it was heartfelt and somber and made them all cry. 

When Tony flicked on an Italian movie called _La Vita è Bella_ , neither boy knew what to expect. 

They soon learned it was of the latter type of Tony movie. That much was pretty obvious when the Nazis showed up. 

By the end, they were all three crying without restraint, laughing at themselves but blubbering over the ending nonetheless. 

“How could they just- it’s not- shouldn’t be _allowed_!” Peter wailed, scrubbing his face with his sleeves. 

“Best movie of all time,” Tony said thickly. “I used to watch it with my parents on Christmas and my dad would say _be thankful it’s not you_. And I would say _be thankful? The kid isn’t the one who died! You should be thankful you're not the dad!_ ”

They all laughed, wiping at each other’s faces. 

“God, Cap’s gonna be pissed we watched a Nazi movie without him,” Harley sniffed. “Can we watch something else? I won’t be able to sleep after that.”

Harley, unlike Peter and Tony, calculated his movie taste down to a range of exactly two movies. They were _Shawshank Redemption_ and _Toy Story_. He _liked_ other movies. He _put up with_ other movies. But those were the only two movies he had ever loved. 

Naturally, they chose _Toy Story_ , but, in equally true fashion, both Harley and Peter conked out before the Pizza Planet scene. 

Tony looked down at the two boys draped across him, feeling something rising hot in his stomach, into his chest. It boiled between his ribs, looped around them with tendrils like ribbons or roots and anchored there. 

No matter how afraid he had been, how afraid he still was, he knew this was right. This was how they were supposed to be. Him and his boys. His babies. God, his _babies_. Across his chest. His. And he loved them. Fuck, he loved them. He loved them with a love that pounded like a spoon across pots and pans and raced like shooting stars across the firmament and beat and beat and beat with every convulsion of his stupid weak heart. 

God, he pitied his father for never having this. 

“ _Ti voglio bene_ ,” he whispered, adoration seeping like sugar syrup into every syllable. “ _Vi amo tanto, le luci della mia vita_.”

And with that, he slept.

**Author's Note:**

> i literally wrote this at work on my phone in one day. i had so much trouble writing it because i am not at all in a fluffy state of mind and i'll never be happy with it but here it is anyway. 
> 
> teaser for the next installment: the last piece of harley's backstory will be revealed so we can finally get moving with other stuff instead of waiting to figure out what happened in his past. yay?
> 
> if it's nighttime please get some rest; if it's daytime drink some water! i love you all dearly. thank you for sticking with me even when i churn out junk. xoxo


End file.
